The present invention relates generally to telecommunications systems and, in particular, to an apparatus and method for providing conference call service based on participation status.
Telecommunications systems are well known in the art. For many years, circuit-switched telephone systems have been used to provide a variety of communication services. In a circuit-switched system, generally speaking, end-to-end communication resources are provided in a dedicated fashion in response to each communication request. Thus, when a call is placed in a circuit-switched telephone communication system, those communication resources provided to complete the call (i.e., trunk lines, switch resources, etc.) are used exclusively by the called and calling parties for the duration of the call. Upon completion of the call, the resources are made available for subsequent exclusive assignment to another call.
In contrast, more recently developed telecommunications systems rely on the non-exclusive use of communication resources. For example, in a packet-switched system, individual communication resources are not provided for dedicated use; rather, they are available for simultaneous use by multiple sources and destinations. Examples of widely used packet-switched systems are the so-called Internet and World Wide Web. In these systems, communication resources (e.g., a dedicated phone line coupled to a gateway) used to provide a given computer access to a web page can simultaneously provide other computers access to other web pages.
As the use of packet-switched systems becomes increasingly pervasive, techniques for providing telephone communications via packet-switched systems have been the subject of significant development. Indeed, various systems have emerged providing a variety of services, including conference calling. Documents describing such systems include Recommendation T.120 (07/96) xe2x80x9cData Protocols for Multimedia Conferencingxe2x80x9d by ITU-T (International Telecommunication Unionxe2x80x94Telecommunication Standardization Sector) and SR-4717, xe2x80x9cVoice Over Packet in Next Generation Networks: An Architectural Frameworkxe2x80x9d (Issue 1, Feb. 1999) by Bellcore. Currently, circuit-switched telephone systems generally provide several advantages over packet-switched telephone systems, i.e., higher voice quality, low latency, etc. However, in comparison to circuit-switched telephone systems, packet-switched telephone systems have the potential to provide cheaper communications to a large number of called parties, making packet-switched telephone systems an attractive option for providing conference call services. As packet-switched telephone systems become more widely accepted, it is anticipated that an increasing number of users will use such systems for conference calling. Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a solution that allows telephone users to reap the benefits of both circuit-switched and packet-switched telephone communications, particularly in the area of conference call services.
The present invention may be more fully described with reference to FIGS. 1-3. FIG. 1 illustrates a telecommunications system 100 comprising an apparatus 102 coupled to a switch 104 that provides connectivity with both a circuit-switched telephone network 106 and a packet-switched telephone network 108. Circuit-switched telephone networks are well-known in the art and need not be described in greater detail here. Furthermore, the circuit-switched telephone network 106 supports conference call services using known techniques, such as conference bridges and related techniques. Preferably, the packet-switched telephone network 108 comprises an Internet Telephony network, as described by Recommendation T.120 (07/96) xe2x80x9cData Protocols for Multimedia Conferencingxe2x80x9d by ITU-T (International Telecommunication Unionxe2x80x94Telecommunication Standardization Sector) or SR-4717, xe2x80x9cVoice Over Packet in Next Generation Networks: An Architectural Frameworkxe2x80x9d (Issue 1, Feb. 1999) by Bellcore. Likewise, the packet-switched telephone network 108 supports conference call services, such as Internet Telephony conference call services as described in the above-mentioned ITU-T and Bellcore documents. Of course, the present invention is not necessarily limited to given circuit-switched or packet-switched conference call services and is only limited by the availability of platforms capable of supporting such services within the apparatus 102 and switch 104. As shown in FIG. 1, both the circuit-switched network 106 and the packet-.switched network 108 support telephone communications with a variety of telephone-capable devices 144-154, which devices may participate in conference calls.